BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss said no gloss should be wiped from his team’s 43-point win over Geelong on Saturday night, regardless of who was unavailable for the Cats.

Voss was full of praise for his troops but went to great lengths to ensure his team received the credit they deserved after the 16.12 (108) to 9.11 (65) win.

The Cats were missing seven players from the team that played St Kilda last week, including Brownlow Medal favourite Gary Ablett and All Australian fullback Matthew Scarlett.

“For us as far as I’m aware they still field 22 players, so I don’t think that’s changed,’’ he said.

“Obviously the build up has been a bit about who hasn’t been there but give credit to the guys and what they’ve been able to do.

“You’ve still got to beat the team that’s got the winning culture and the way they’re able to build their group of players together and their style of play they play, you’ve still got to beat that.

“If I was to forecast what tomorrow would look like, it would probably be spoken about who wasn’t there and whether that gloss was taken off, whereas I don’t believe that was the case at all.

“To beat Geelong is to beat Geelong, who’s done that in the past two or three years?’’

The only downside in the Lions’ breakthrough victory was an anterior cruciate ligament injury to vice captain Jed Adcock, suffered in the first quarter.

Voss said the Lions had overcome an ‘’appalling’’ performance against Port Adelaide last week and were also mindful of turning around a 93-point hammering suffered against the Cats in Round 5.

“One of the reasons why they’re a great club is because they’re a great team,’’ he said.

“They have individuals who are obviously highly capable players but they’re a great team. So for us to be able to get away with a victory, there’s not a lot of teams that have done that in two or three years against Geelong.”

The Lions coach said his young players had particularly stood up, singling out the courage of debutant Jack Reddan.

He said the midfield brigade, which was led by 32 quality touches from Daniel Rich, was now expanding to take the pressure off some of the Lions leading lights.

“Shermo’s  been tagged at times, Blacky obviously does, Luke does, now Rich comes into that category, Rischa very good, Jared Brennan has some attention, so the more you can spread that workload evenly amongst the group, they become harder to beat as a group rather than just one individual getting sat on at any particular time,’’ Voss said.

“I think we’ve seen Simon Black carrying around a few players on his shoulders for the last two years and it’s nice to see him getting a chop out from time to time from some of these other blokes who have certainly stepped up.’’